Aragorn's sword is indeed one of the more notable weapons in the Lord of the Rings, and the Sword that Was Broken will not be wielded by the future king at Weathertop in the Fellowship of the Ring movie. !SPOILERS! [More]

Sir Ian McKellen has updated his Lord Of The Rings E-Posts on his site, in which he talks about favourite scenes, the much talked about portrayal of Gandalf as he visits Frodo in the second trailer, his love for the character and leaving the Gandalf persona behind in New Zealand. [More]

FilmFour.Com has posted a copy of a brief conversation between Ananova News and Elijah Wood, in which he revealed that despite being the luckiest person in the world at the moment, he is worried about his career after Lord Of The Rings. [More]

It has been mentioned before that the original manuscripts to LOTR (and the Hobbit and some other stuff) is at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. Just wanted to mention that a fuller description of what the library has is here. [www.marquette.edu]

I'd love to see the unpublished epilogues, and Aragorn's letter to Master Samwise. Looks like it is available to anyone with a photo ID and prior arrangement.

J.R.R. Tolkien believed that myth is inherently true and material progress inherently evil. You could call that radical, reactionary or romantic, but it's a distinctively modern phenomenon. Modernity and the Enlightenment notion of progress have to exist before you can reject them, and once again we see that "The Lord of the Rings," for all the magic it employs to repopulate England with its ancient wraiths and spirits, belongs finally to the 20th century. [More]

The next Marton Csokas (Celeborn) film will be 'Garage Days', a film about a young garage band in Sydney, Australia trying to make it big. Directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City) and co-stars Kick Gurry (Buffalo Soldiers) and Maya Stange (In a Savage Land). This film is currently in Pre-Production.

The Next Christopher Lee (Saruman) film is called 'Orlof 2001 - Cries in the Night' a re-make of the 1962 film 'Gritos en la noche'. The film is directed by Jesus Franco (Helter Skelter). The Horror film currently does not have a release date yet.

I'm just emailing you to tell you that I just saw in the magazine "Veja", one of the most popular here in Brazil, that LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring has just cracked the top ten most sold fiction books here in Brazil and it sits at the number eight spot. It's pretty good, considering the zero publicity it gets in here.

The first lesson of the Lord of the Rings class at the BN University has been posted, it is called J. R. R. Tolkien: The Man. Be sure to also check out the very informative LOTR Glossary on the page. [More]

Now we're starting to see a lot more thoughtful journalism looking at the Tolkien and what his popularity says about our culture. These aren't fans talking and you may not agree with all that they say, but it's good to see the books considered as seriously as in this Salon.com article for instance. [More]

Barlimaniacs, the open door will be closing soon! That's right, in only four weeks, our registration period for Barliman's Bash in Chicago will be drawing to an end. "What," you ask, "does that mean for me?" more

Thought this might be a good read, thanks to Andrew (via the New York Times) for the tip!

For more than a half century, "The Chronicles of Narnia" captivated children with tales of Aslan, a tawny lion who ruled a wintry Narnian kingdom of dwarfs, fauns and occasionally errant English schoolchildren. [More]

The magnificent Edoras set that was around Mount Sunday in New Zealand was one of the most impressive things I saw during the production, it seemed so 'permanent'. Well Ringer Spy Zig sends in word and a pic that the set is gone. Read on:

The following pic was the film set of the town of Edoras on the rocky plateau of Mount Sunday at the head of the Rangitata River in Mid Canterbury. It has now been restored to its natural beauty. [More]

The Middle Earth Online lawsuit just entered the next phase. In an internal memo issued to all staff on 5-23, Sierra requests that all employees submit "...any records, notes, email or anything else related to this entity". [More]

The annual MTV Movie Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles last night, and as it's a year early, there were no nominees from the Lord Of he Ring cast up for an award this year. However, Howard Shore's High Fidelity was nominated for three awards, including Best Musical Moment. [More]

In Star Wars Insider magazine (#54, page 15 ) it mentions the LOTR. The magazine has a flip cover so the other half of the mag is about Raiders of the Lost Ark. They have a section called "where are they now" and they write about John Rhys-Davies being Gimli and doing the voice of Treebeard. The Force is with us!

The Trailer Release Date Page has been updated with many new countries/cities thanks to Pippin Took. Meanwhile Harry Knowles wrote in with some good sense about the Japanese film release dates and why they're so late. "The Japanese Film Market basically doesn't understand or have a great deal of anticipation for LORD OF THE RINGS. The Japanese edition of the book is a poor translation that most Japanese seem to have a great deal of problems with.

As a result, Japan is the one major release area that is going to be staggered... this is so New Line can use the success of the film in the rest of the world to help the film there." Thanks to Harry.

Greenbooks staffer Ostadan sent us this big info: Vivendi (formerly Havas, owner of Sierra Studios, the Lord of the Rings console game people)have just arranged to purchase one of the last independent book publishers in the United States: Houghton Mifflin. The name may be familiar. [More]

In Japan they're showing the OLD trailer in front of '15 Minutes,' and then, "...Extremely annoyingly, the out of date trailer ended with "Lord of the Rings" inkkatakana (Japanese alphabet), followed by a screen filled with the words "Spring 2002"."

The latest Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) film, "The Man Who Cried," hit theaters today in very limited release (NY/LA only). The film is set during WWII and also stars Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp, with Blanchett in a supporting role.

Check out the Cannes links to on the official site, some great shots of PJ and Liv Tyler (Arwen) and Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) with a Gondorian Warrior! Just click on 'Exclusive from Cannes' to find your way! [More]

The much-anticipated first film of the "Lord Of The Rings" series has received an 11th-hour new opening, and technical snags have forced the actors to re-record much of the dialogue, according to actor Ian McKellan. [More]

Göteborg-Posten Newspaper from Sweden has a three page article on LOTR. According to Ringer Fan Marcus, there is nothing groundbreaking in the actual news story, but the images are cool! !SPOILERS! [Page 1] [Page 2 and 3]

The latest David Wenham (Faramir) film, Moulin Rouge is out today in the US. This film opened Cannes and has gained a lot of attention as of late, I didn't realise that there were so many David Wenham fans out there...

Pearl Harbor is released in the United Kingdom today, and for those people who want to take a trip down their local cinema to see the Lord Of The Rings trailer before it, BBC On-Line have a helfpul list on their website of cinemas that are showing Pearl Harbor, and where Pearl Harbor goes Lord Of The Rings isn't far behind. [More]

Filming on rocky Mount Ruapehu, the site of some heavy Elf-on-Orc battle scenes in Mordor, was even more challenging, as up to 1,100 people were on set each day. That's a lot of foot traffic over some rare alpine vegetation. [More]

More things to enjoy while waiting for the movies to come out. These are both funny:Debbie's Waiting for Frodo comicstrip which accompanies her Blatherings webjournal. I thought I'd mention it again because so many people are enjoying her trip through reading LOTR for the FIRST time.

Secondly there's the LOTR drinking game from Phat Cheops. Bad Language alert! - and I don't mean misuse of apostrophes! TOR.net takes no responsibility if you wind up with a hangover. [More]

Roger Ebert's required reading The Bigger Little Book Of Hollywood Cliches states plainly that in the promotions war, films sponsored by McDonalds are always expensive, embarrassing failures whereas those sponsored by Burger King are always smash hits.

Pearl Harbor is released in the United Kingdom today, and for those people who want to take a trip down their local cinema to see the Lord Of The Rings trailer before it, BBC On-Line have a helfpul list on their website of cinemas that are showing Pearl Harbor, and where Pearl Harbor goes Lord Of The Rings isn't far behind. [More]

Also, if you don't feel like spending the shipping fees to get an Official Poster from the US, check out http://www.gbposters.co.uk/. Ringer David says its quite a bargain at just £3:99!

Are you ready? I am! Ringer fan Ben sends word of a webpoll for which sci-fi/fantasy author they would recommend. Currently, the professor is in 4th place. (*gasp!*) Lets change that! [More]

UPDATE

Beware the power of Tolkien fandom! In a little under an hour we took the lead. And now, well, now its not close. Sorta scary actually. Last time I looked, J.R.R. Tolkien was winning by 400 votes.

ANOTHER UPDATE

Ben mentions that you can vote for more than one author, so not only can you vote Tolkien to the top but totally reorganise this poll. There's some deserving authors you might prefer to see rate more highly than they are right now.

Harry over at AICN has posted a story about a lucky fan who caught Allan Dougherty playing a bit of the LOTR score in a pub in Dublin, Allan is the lead flute player on the opening theme for LOTR. Check out the report! [More]

At this rate, we might end up seeing the WHOLE movie before December! Yet again, there are new pictures available at Elostirion.com. First, we have a wonderful shot of Gandalf (probably) leading the Fellowship. The second image shows the layout of Orthanc and a look at the Palantir. !SPOILERS [More]

You have to scroll down for it, but it's there: More confirmation of the news (first reported in 'Variety') that there will be a 'Director's Cut' DVD of LOTR. "The DVD versions of the trilogy will probably contain more extreme footage than the tamer version released in cinemas to earn a PG rating."[more] Thanks to Elric for that.

If you want to know exactly how much longer you have to suffer, Ectopia offers a solution: "Here are two great freeware programs to download for the movie release countdown. One is just a countdown clock, the other is a screensaver countdown clock. I am using the screensaver and fully recommend it. It is fully customizable for any date and completely free." Thanks to Sarah for that.

Elostirion.com has two new images available for download today. Check out a cool shot of the Hobbits and one of Gandalf holding The One Ring. From the looks of it, we will also be seeing another Gandalf image tomorrow as well as a 'mystery' image! heh. !SPOILERS! [More]

The latest issue of the UK's Dreamwatch magazine (due out thurs and in specialist shops before then--full interview with Liv Tyler (Arwen) solely on LOTR. (any UK Ringers with scanners MAY want to drop me a line....)

"Actually, the best thing about going to the film (Pearl Harbor) was getting to see the new trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. There were about 2,000 people in the theater I was in, and almost every last one of them went nuts for it. I already can't wait for December. VERY cool."